Critics can be so, well, critical. But this week they take a minute to appreciate the best people, places and things they cover. Consider it a reminder of the richness of Colorado culture.

You could count Denver’s great tall buildings on your fingers, but there are handfuls of reasons to love them.

Love Republic Plaza, the polished granite shell that reaches highest, for still looking new at age 25. Or love slender One Cheesman Place for treading its modernity so lightly on our precious park. Or love, and respect, the fancy, formidable D&F Tower for simply surviving while so much around it fell.

But love the building known as 1670 Broadway for providing us with what might be Denver’s single best architectural moment.

Perhaps you’ve had this moment. Heading away from downtown up 17th Street. On your left and right, a serious set-up of distinguished banks and offices — stone temples with classic touches, sleek worker hives sheathed in dark glass. And straight ahead, where Broadway cuts at a curve and caps the avenue: the rounded satin corner of an optimistic 36-story skyscraper, its aluminum bands a smooth invitation to the future, its shiny glass reflecting the past that surrounds it.

1670 Broadway gleams softly, stunningly, in this perfect frame. At dusk, it can be so striking that all the architecture lining 17th — the frilly Equitable Building (built in 1892), the great and sturdy Colorado National Bank (1915), even the stiff former Qwest Tower (1980) — seem as if they were built to serve 1670 Broadway.

For sure, 1670 Broadway, formerly Columbia Plaza, then Amoco Tower (now it says TIAA-CREF at the top), is not nearly perfect. After that magic moment a lot happens. The structure has an extra, awkward fifth side; its grace falls apart as you circle it. The lobby is dated, with its exposed framing and Dale Chihuly glass.

But Kohn Pedersen Fox, the New York-based firm that designed it in 1980, recognized the possibilities of 17th and Broadway. Those downtown intersections, where the grid abruptly shifts, can be confusing. So 1670 Broadway was made a commonsense beacon, a way-finder for pedestrians and drivers alike.

And while it can be a severe structure — nothing interrupts its flat, flat front for 440 vertical feet — the building is a soft neighbor, its metallic surface is muted, and its rounded corner offers the sweetest of gestures to the similarly curved Brown Palace Hotel across the street.

It is fully modern, slightly sentimental and totally Denver. At least for one shining moment.

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